


The Curious Principle of Le Chatelier

by HelenaHandbasket



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-03
Updated: 2005-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenaHandbasket/pseuds/HelenaHandbasket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson boldly broaches a long-held silence, and is rebutted with arguments about chemical equilibrium.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Principle of Le Chatelier

**Author's Note:**

> The bulk of this narrative is meant to take place in 1888, prior to the events of SIGN. The little exchange of dialogue at the end comes directly from EMPT.

The Curious Principle of Le Chatelier  
by Helena Handbasket

 

The sitting room was quiet, save for the omnipresent ticking of the wall clock and the rustling of the Times, whose tall pages obscured Sherlock Holmes from my view. I was seated on the sofa, hand cramping from holding a novel in the same position for far too long. Ostensibly I was reading for pleasure, but I found that I could hardly get through a sentence at a time before the words blurred on the page and my mind was driven to distraction. I glanced over at Holmes again, having long since lost count of the number of times I had done this, and caught a glimpse of his sharp jawline as he folded and reopened his newspaper to turn the page. He cleared his throat purposefully, as if warning the articles that now faced him that they had better be accurate, for he intended to pay very close attention.

I took a deep breath and lowered my eyes, poised to make a fresh effort at a particularly wearisome sentence which had been vexing me for nearly a quarter of an hour. Again I was defeated. My gaze lifted as if propelled by an otherworldly force to settle upon Holmes.

"Was there something you wished to discuss with me?" he inquired abruptly. Despite the suddenness of his words, he did not otherwise move.

Defensively, my eyes snapped back to the book, and I endeavored to sound nonchalant in my response. "Pardon?"

He lowered the paper at this, and regarded me earnestly. "Watson, you have been reading that book for the better part of an hour and have yet to turn a single page. This speaks of a man who is contemplating some deep question. And your frequent glances in my direction suggest that you are considering entering into conversation, but are hesitant to do so. If you wished to speak of some trivial subject, then you surely would not hesitate. I therefore conclude that it is this deep matter of yours which you hope to discuss."

Despite myself, I smiled at this, for only Holmes would pose a question in such a way. Indeed, only Holmes would spare the acuity for such deductions on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was a time when I had been discomfited by his ability to strip my psyche bare so effortlessly, but the nudity seemed natural now, inextricable from the other facets of our long companionship. Still, I knew that there were some things which, if impossible to keep hidden, must at least remain unspoken.

"You cannot know whether I have been glancing at you," I pointed out. "You have had your face buried in that newspaper for as long as I have been failing to read this book."

"One does not need to see in order to observe," he retorted, his mild temper ruffled by the coyness of my response. But he seemed immediately to regret the sharpness of his tone and continued more warmly. "Come, Watson. Share your thoughts before I am behooved to deduce them myself."

How I longed to oblige him. I could not recall the precise moment at which my mind began to dwell upon my ingenious companion, but ever since then it had been increasingly consumed with him. What began as simple curiosity grew gradually into fascination and then into something more complex, a multifaceted, textured affection unlike anything I had ever experienced. My breath became apt to catch in my throat at times when my emotions caught me by surprise and overwhelmed me. And on those nights when we crouched together in a darkened library or huddled in the chill air of a lonely wharf, bodies pressed together for warmth and reassurance, flesh sensitized by the thrill of the hunt, my heart pounded in my chest like the hooves of galloping steeds. No word exists in the Anglo-Saxon tongue to describe such tortured bliss.

But I was consoled by the knowledge that I was not alone in my deviance. Holmes, too, had developed a strange fondness for me and, whether he realized it or not, he wore it like a badge. Part scientist, part misanthrope, he looked upon his fellow man with an oscillating perspective of curiosity and disdain. His emotions were strangely limited, as if constrained to a measure of objectivity - he felt sympathy but not empathy, pity but not compassion, admiration but not love. But I was his notable exception. It was apparent in the rare ease of our companionship and the contented approval with which he remarked upon my developing observational skills. Lestrade, I knew, would receive no equivalent plaudits for his meager deductions. And although Holmes remarked upon my failures as well as my successes, his interest in my thoughts remained unwavering.

I maintained the hypothesis that Holmes was, by nature, a personable man, but it was not a trait he often chose to exercise. That he reserved the mantle of true friendship for me alone was an indescribable honor. For me, his confidence was priceless. But even more valuable and enthralling was the spark of passion that occasionally manifested in his eyes. I recognized that glimmer of desire from the vanity mirror, and understood that the bond we shared was something more profound than mere friendship or brotherly affection. I knew that mine was not the only heartbeat spurred to a gallop when we touched.

We felt the same, he and I, although I could not fathom what made me so remarkable in his eyes. My feelings had grown particularly intense in recent months. Equivalently, I believed, had his. Yet we never spoke of it, maintaining the equilibrium of our friendship despite the reservoir of untapped desire.

And such was as it should be, for what other choice did we have? Did we seek to debauch ourselves like the Greeks of old? Commit all manner of gross indecencies prohibited by British law? The prospect was strangely tempting, yet it was an imperfect solution on innumerable counts.

Still, the inadvisability of such an undertaking had not prevented me from musing upon it. And such was the lascivious nature of my thoughts when Holmes so congenially demanded that I reveal them.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "I think, Holmes, that perhaps this once my thoughts are best left undisclosed."

"Nonsense," he replied, speaking so easily that I knew he had not guessed the nature of my reflections. "You know you may confide in me with any subject that might weigh upon your mind."

I deliberated for a moment, hesitant but curious. The bohemian within me questioned why Holmes and I should be made to suffer the pangs of a dilemma so easily rectified. My pragmatic self, meanwhile, strove to quiet those seductive whisperings. The internal struggle was contentious, if brief, but for the first time in numerous confrontations, the David of my passions overcame the Goliath of reason. I set my book on the cushion beside me and uncrossed my legs, exposing the evidence of my arousal.

Only on rare occasions was Holmes actually taken by surprise, but this was one of them. He stared at first, lips slightly parted, then forced his gaze to meet mine. I trembled at the sight of him, at his raw desire, and felt suddenly lightheaded, gripping the arm of the sofa to prevent myself from committing an unduly rash act. He licked his lips, and his nostrils flared. Never before had I seen him so unseated.

For an instant, I could visualize him on a precipice. He was torn by indecision, much as I had been a few moments before, but it seemed that his struggle was more profound. He tensed the muscles in his legs, seemingly about to rise and cross the room to satisfy that persistent ache we had both suffered for so long. But then he stopped and closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temples. He would not look at me, and I became self-conscious, gathering my book into my lap and holding it there as a shield. I desperately wished my moment of impropriety revoked.

Eventually, Holmes spoke. "Are you familiar, Watson, with a note recently published in the Annales de Mines by a French industrial chemist called Le Chatelier?"

Absently, I confessed that I was not. I was far too mortified by this palpable rejection to think upon matters of the academy.

Holmes rose and began rifling through his file cabinet, eventually drawing out a page of scrawled notes. He cleared his throat and began to read. "'Every change of one of the factors of an equilibrium occasions a rearrangement of the system in such a direction that the factor in question experiences a change in a sense opposite to the original change.'"

"Fascinating," I replied with utter disingenuousness.

"Yes," Holmes agreed, treating the discussion as if I were an active participant, "and highly counterintuitive. It's like the Looking Glass garden, you see: the more determinedly you run towards something, the further away it becomes ."

"Indeed."

Obviously vexed, he abandoned his notes and approached the sofa. Instinctively, I retreated to the far edge. He sat down, leaning forward as if to grasp my hands, and then pulled away, swayed by second thoughts. "I am concerned that you are not grasping my meaning," he said.

The pointedness of his words and the sincerity of his visage caught my attention, and I found myself reexamining his remarks in a new context. If he viewed our relationship as a sort of Looking Glass garden, then it was clear that he feared advancement lest it lead to recession. The fear was unfounded from my perspective, and it implied a queer temerity and closed-mindedness for a man of his intellect. "The human spirit is not governed by physics," I pointed out.

"Why shouldn't it be?" he demanded. "The rest of the universe is. And we see its nature reflected in the imagination of Carroll."

I looked at Holmes, then, and saw him in an entirely new light. Impossible though it seemed, this was a circumstance in which my bravery surpassed his. I resolved to rectify this fact.

Stretching my arm across the back of the sofa, I leaned forward until I was able to feel the currents of his breath against my skin. When he did not retreat, I enfolded him, placing my hand on the back of his head, enjoying the texture of short hair against my palm. Gently, I drew him forward and pressed my lips against his, relishing in the tingle of contact and the knowledge that so much insight had passed through them. He resisted at first, but soon relaxed into the kiss and I moved closer, kneading the muscles of his shoulder as I cradled the back of his neck. I tilted my head, sliding my tongue across the lips that had been familiar to my eyes for so long. It felt as if I were tasting his genius; the flavor was delectable.

His response grew swiftly more impassioned, and I knew I had convinced him to abandon his reluctance. He gripped my waistcoat with an unquenchable fervor that ignited my passions all the more. Eventually, he took my hand and led me to his bedroom, forsaking the reservations imposed by literature, law, and science.

What transpired behind that door I will not say, but I will suffice it to report that Sherlock was not unknowledgeable in regards to the techniques employed. We explored each other with such heathen frenzy that even now the thought of that night (and those that followed) imbues my flesh with an incomparable heat, such that I fear the ink will boil away from my pen.

But science, it seems, is more far-reaching than I had credited it. A strain insinuated itself into our relationship, forged of the unsociable nature of unchecked desire. We could not maintain the normality of our public interplay, and much as Le Chatelier might have predicted, our private closeness was countered by a public coolness that negatively impacted our relationship. It was less than a year before I met and married Mary Morstan, an act I now understand to be one of fear as much as love, an attempt to deny the abnormal relations I had shared with Sherlock Holmes.

He made no secret of his disapproval, although it was disguised in the capacity of neglected friend, but I could hardly convey the true nature of the situation to Mary. She tolerated our continued friendship, even encouraged it, but was inappropriately unmoved by Holmes' death, an event which destroyed me for a length of time interminable and, I believe, eventually led to the downfall of our marriage.

When Holmes returned from the dead, it seemed as a blessing from God. He was as unlamenting of Mary's death as she had been of his, though equally as sympathetic towards how it had affected me, but from him the indifference was somehow inoffensive. I watched his reactions closely, seeking an indication of the kind of expectations he maintained for our relationship, hoping that they were the same as mine. And he, I could tell, was seeking a similar revelation from me.

The moment arrived swiftly, when Holmes exploited the distinctively Victorian utility of double meanings. Allegedly, he was discussing the Adair murder and his plans to ensnare the colonel, but we both knew there was something more intimate implied by his request for my company.

"You'll come with me tonight?"

I replied without hesitation. "When you like and where you like."

And that settled it. The equilibrium of our fondness had been disrupted by my impulsiveness years before, but the arduous trial of separation had counteracted the damage that had been done. Now we were at liberty to settle upon a delightful balance of companionship and secret passion. With the blessing of Nature and Le Chatelier, I devoutly hoped it would be so.

End.


End file.
